to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

In my adult life, I've seesawed from drinking pretty much every night to teetotalerism. I've been in the 'lucky if I get through an entire six pack in a month' phase for a while, but I kinda feel like alcohol may become a more central part of my life in days to come.

Josh, I always heard that the session thing was from Britishes worker shifts (possibly during wartime manufacturing efforts) where you needed a beer you could drink before going back to work. But that could be spurious; I dunno.

Josh - I think the story is they started licensing hours during WWI to improve worker productivity by shutting pubs at 10:30pm, and also closing during the day between (I think) 3pm and 7pm. This stayed after the war finished and at some point 10:30pm got changed to 11pm except on Sundays. Then the afternoon closing went in the 80s apart from Sundays, which was changed in 1995 (I know that one is correct). So yeah the received wisdom is that Brits chug so much beer down so they can get drunk before the early closing time.

Licensing laws were relaxed some time after 2000 but a lot of pubs still close at 11.

I love stuff like this btw

https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/presidential-drinking-habits-washington-jefferson

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/why-the-pilgrims-wore-beer-goggles/

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/152901/rabbi-wolpes-picks-revisiting-prohibition

There's some book I read years ago about drinking that I loved but I cannot remember the title or the author for the life of me right now. I think it had a cider recipe in the back. It was by a woman.

Didn't it used to be customary to have Friday lunch down the pub with your officemates?

Oh, "The Joy of Drinking" by Barbara Holland. It's good. She's dead now.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/09/the-author-who-brought-us-the-joy-of-drinking-a-tribute/63259/

xp still is at some places I've worked. Not where I am now unfortunately not that I would get into any trouble if I did go for a pint, we do very occasionally.

Lincoln excepted, our teetotaler presidents have been disasters.

Didn't it used to be customary to have Friday lunch down the pub with your officemates?

Still reasonably widespread.

My current office quite often puts beers out late on Fridays, which they have just sent an email out about but I work from home on Fridays so no free beer for me. I just made a coffee anyway so I'll live.

was thinking of this thread as i went out for "a drink" for a colleague's leaving do - went on to another pub which had a free beer as a recruiter was hosting some kind of networking event for people who do my job, colleagues left so i met a bunch of other people, stayed till latest possible time. dying today.

a free bar rather than a free beer - multiple free beers.

"The Joy of Drinking" by Barbara Holland. It's good. She's dead now.

Teetotalers be like: "SEE? Drinking kills!"

My life does not revolve around alcohol at all. It probably did for a couple of years in my teens but I grew out of it rather quickly.

I was a teetotaler for much of my twenties then became a social drinker.

Exercise and other, boring responsibilities limit the times I can drink. I try to drink a couple of beers or small amounts of whisky once a week, though. I tend to do it to enjoy the taste and social bonding aspect of it.

Those are the things most celebrated in Holland's book, IIRC.

I also found this piece fascinating, despite the author:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/15/drinking-games

prob not new for many of you but this is in the spirit of the kingsley amis book, a v enjoyable piece:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/05/26/a-few-too-many

That's a good one. There's a decent book I've read on that topic too, which is easy to remember because its title is THE WRATH OF GRAPES

I love "carpenters in the forehead"

yeah that is amazing indeed.

My contact in Calcutta said buttermilk [as a hangover cure]. “You can also pour it over your head,” he added. “Very soothing.”

^^^my favorite

I prefer to pour kerosene on my head, put on Al Stewart, and pull out my lighter.

feel like drinkin' alone is better than listening to billy joel track-by-track

Is it any wonder Billy likes to imbibe?

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/08/a-study-says-heavy-drinking-is-now-a-public-health-crisis.html

Mookie otm

I divide the cash in my wallet into denominations that can or cannot be used to buy a pint

re: mild ale, I was back in the midlands this week for a couple of days and popped in to one of the pubs I used to go to as a teenager while I was in town, but alas they only sell Banks's Amber Ale nowadays, no mild.

for whatever reason I think that story I just linked to might be the tipping point that makes me strictly a social drinker who tries to stick to seven or fewer drinks per week. we'll see how that turns out.

Could also have posted this to the Billy Joel listening thread

https://healthfoodsoul.com/spiritual-consequences-alcohol-consumption/

In the words of writer and health enthusiast, Jason Christoff – “In alchemy, alcohol is used to extract the soul essence of an entity. Hence its’ use in extracting essences for essential oils, and the sterilization of medical instruments. By consuming alcohol into the body, it in effect extracts the very essence of the soul, allowing the body to be more susceptible to neighboring entities most of which are of low frequencies (why do you think we call certain alcoholic beverages “SPIRITS?”). That is why people who consume excessive amounts of alcohol often black out, not remembering what happened. This happens when the good soul (we were sent here with) leaves because the living conditions are too polluted and too traumatic to tolerate. The good soul jettisons the body, staying connected to a tether, and a dark entity takes the body for a joy ride around the block, often in a hedonistic and self-serving illogical rampage. Our bodies are cars for spirits. If one leaves, another can take the car for a ride. Essentially when someone goes dark after drinking alcohol or polluting themselves in many other ways, their body often becomes possessed by another entity.”

Can that be used as a legal defense?

"Sorry, your honor, my body was possessed by another entity at the time."

As a matter of fact your honour, I believe he was called jack daniels

Essentially when someone goes dark after drinking alcohol or polluting themselves in many other ways, their body often becomes possessed by another entity

in my case it's usually slimer from ghostbusters

guilty lol

There are lots of alcohol threads, jeez. Anyway, I read this WaPo essay and it really bugged me:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/giving-up-alcohol-made-our-lives-better--and-turned-us-into-terrible-guests/2019/02/08/7169dab6-2b1e-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html

Not the general gist of it (if you don't want to drink alcohol, fine), but sort of what's missing from the piece. That is, how much drinking is Drinking? The author gives all these symptoms -"Without alcohol, everything got better. Indigestion? Gone. Sleep? Vastly improved. Skin? Amazingly clear and better hydrated. Mood? Stable and light" - and while she relates it to the potentiated symptoms associated with menopause, I thought, man, alcohol has never been a problem for me, or given me any problems, probably because ... I don't drink too much of it? Sometimes I have a drink or two a day, sometimes I go several days without drinks, but I would never excise it because it's never been a problem, which is sort of tautological: it doesn't give me any problems because I'm not a problem drinker. I drink plenty of beer and bourbon and other things, just not all at once, in huge amounts. Seems a pretty sensible strategy, if you're going to drink at all.

Though it did get me thinking back to my high school (or earlier?) health teacher. If you drink regularly, is that in and of itself a problem, no matter the quantity? Could I imagine my life without alcohol? I guess, but only in the same way I could imagine my life without bread, or sugar: I think it would be worse! I don't know, this essay just rubbed me the wrong way. Her husband, for example, stopped drinking and lost 18 pounds and lessened the amount of blood pressure meds he needed. If drinking cause you to gain 20 pounds and gives you high blood pressure, among other things, then yeah, maybe that's the difference between drinking and Drinking.

Well, yeah. I don't wish to be glib about this, but: If drinking a lot causes you problems, don't drink a lot. If you can't drink at all without it becoming a problem, then... don't drink at all, I guess.

The discussion becomes unhelpfully polarized when we don't recognize that moderate - even enthusiastic
- enjoyment is an option.

I get really down when I see someone rich and famous having trouble with the bottle, or with drugs for that matter, because I think that having lots of money should open options for fun that go way beyond the stuff a schmuck like me can buy, such that the basic stuff no longer comes to mind. like, shouldn't there be bodily pleasures concomitant with crazy cash, that aren't just excesses of the basic stuff that everyone already likes? like, it makes me feel bad not only for the imaginations of the rich, but for how limited our imaginations and powers of pleasure are as a species.

there is part of me that thinks alcohol is a social ill and one of the worst drugs ever but otherwise yeah

Well, there's always this old lushes' tale, which I assume is an urban legend:

https://japanophile.livejournal.com/259667.html

xp

I'm starting to feel like the odd one out for having a healthy relationship to drinking. I really enjoy a beer or a cocktail, maybe 2 (!) on a weekend, but have basically no desire to go beyond that, or to feel wasted/out-of-control.

But the vast majority of our friends have stopped drinking, and the ones that haven't still go way too hard. Feels like there are very few friends we can just have a casual drink with on a Friday night.

That essay just makes me really think that Minnesota (and other midwestern states) really need to legalize recreational pot.

I would love to quit drinking but it would require a heroic level of self control because i love beer and it’s available at every social event

Seems really insidious, like smartphones

I mean, all states should legalize weed. I'm not a big fan, though – it doesn't rival the occasional night of Eastern European-style drinking.

2xp

Weed gives me anxiety

Exactly. Heightened perception of music doesn't make up for it. I also get awful weed hangovers.

my life is a weed hangover

and yeah weed doesn't do the same thing as alcohol, obv

what is a weed hangover

No such luck on my end.

I had my first drink since March 2017 last month. Two Johnny Walker Blacks at a work function for my wife. It was fine. The alcohol tasted worse than it used to back when I drank daily. Had a mild hangover the next day, which was a big surprise with such little alcohol. Haven't had a drop since, but I think enjoying one every 20 months or so will be fine.

In the meantime, with reflection I've really come to realize that in addition to my reasons that I outlined before, I really was not as good of a husband or father when I was regularly using alcohol. Not like, a raging monster, but in ways that were too subtle for me to notice at the time. Brought it up with my wife the other night and she was like "yeah, you were kind of a dick."

the weed thing was pointed directly to some issues outlined in the essay which I would think plagues a lot of aging chilly people in the midwestern states.